A piece on craftsmanship

A piece on craftsmanship
First of all we ought question if an endeavour is worthwhile. There is a strong argument that doing a job well for its own sake is a moral certainty. Oppenheimer certainly worked hard to make the best bomb he could. Later in his journals, however, was known to quote the Indian God krishnas words, ' I am become death: the destroyer of worlds'. In his Reith lectures of 1953 he could give no satisfactory answer to how his work should be used, only that it was good to deliver a technology to mankind for them to find its use.
We have an obsession with work. Politicians endlessly push the lower ranks to find more work regardless of purpose. Work is seen to be a purpose in itself. Those who are successful consume proportionally more. As our resources become depleted it ought not be the greatest consumers who are considered morally upstanding. This is mere greed. The craft of unemployment ought to be subjected to scrutiny. A man ought to be praised for taking the Christian option of poverty. Living on benefits is far from easy. It requires discipline of mind to find purpose without work. Great poets, artists, engineers lay among their number choosing to consume little for the common good. Such self sacrifice is a moral certainty. Indeed, as is frequently pointed out by il luminaries espousing over working, david Cameron, jeremy Kyle, there is room for perversion within unemployment. But that is but one story. These are not overly intelligent men, or else men with alterior motives.
To work on worthwhile endeavours well is a moral certainty. This is the aim of the most high minded. To raise children well, to develope technologies to reduce climate change, to reduce the mass extinction being caused by overpopulation, to grow food in sustainable practices. To make objects to satisfy inner drives is morally questionable but to make objects for community needs is moral certainty. Interestingly, the work that calls itself the Crafts has lost most of its notion of providing satisfactory objects for community needs. Instead innovations of teapots that don't pour are sustained by poor art theory. A furniture has evolved of little useful value but finely crafted as the maker, perverted yet supported by fellow idealists on online forums, loses touch with the purpose of his endeavour. To provide seating is noble. To display skill through the vehicle of a chair a quite different thing. At its best, a good design built well is morally harmonious.
Over crafting is a form of bad or poor craftsmanship. Making turned to the perversion of obsession. It is a healthy practice to aspire to do any craft well from computer programming, child rearing to woodwork. To over craft is more of a danger than to under craft.
The junior prom queens, dressed and handmade bespoke costume that speaks of adulthood, made up like fairy princesses is over crafting in child rearing. With the advent of the Internet, the perverse in all fields can find forums where discussion, free from the cautionary wisdom of the wider community, can form moral cultures. The prom queen parents, paedophiles and furniture makers alike. Free from the balance of communities of physical and random interaction, these moral cultures are free to grow perverse.
Craftsmanship requires reappraisal. The craftsmanship of the surgeon, the dentist, the school teacher, are as much a part as the glass blower. Indeed the work practices that become Crafts are often trades grown economically redundant through superior technologies. They become of interest only to people for whom economics is of no consequence.


Sent from my iPad